amicitiaderuptus friendshipbroken
by instar
Summary: riley's best friend skye is around when he needs a hand to hold... now changed a bit for the better! please rr!


A/n: Ok... I know when I put the orig version of this up I got a bit of bad feedback (but me being the ever optimist I have taken it as constuctive criticism and replaced the story with an improved version! =) ) I know that Sam liked my ritin tho so that was encouraging! I apologise for any misunderstandings but now there's a lil character bit at the beginning to sort this mess about Skye out! So there we are... oh I don't own buffy people but I think everybody already knows that! Yeah oh and skye isnt me! Please be nice =) instar  
  
Skye – Riley's best friend. Have been best friends since tiny people in Iowa, so know each other real well! Basic physical description: blonde curls, (white blonde though, not golden 'Buffy' blonde, blue eyes and reasonably tanned skin, average height, nice figure, quite pretty. NOT mary- sue like, was popular in high school, prom queen like.  
  
Also I have added... Laura – Skye's room mate. Have known each other since beginning of year, introduced Skye to Rachael (both of whom went to high school with buffy/willow/etc)  
  
PS sorry but im english so I don't know much about general america-ness and hence may have got stuff wrong, so I'm sorry in advance!  
  
amicitia/deruptus   
  
I walked through the woods in a daze, scuffing the ground with my boots as I tugged my jacket round my body. I spent a great deal of time doing this recently, walking and losing myself in my thoughts. I ran my hand through my blonde curls, sighing as I felt my lashes hit my cheeks repeatedly – a nervous habit of blinking too much when I was upset or thinking too much. I heard a noise behind me and turned, shocked to see Riley stood there.  
  
We'd been friends ever since I'd seen him playing in the next door yard, and we'd introduced ourselves. I had been friends with him through my first boyfriend, his messy girlfriend relationships, the good ones, all types of issues, through junior and high school, and he'd left a year before me to go to UC Sunnydale, which I'd headed to ASAP.  
  
"Hey," I whispered huskily, as he moved closer, asking what was wrong as I tried to hide the tears on my cheeks. "It's nothing..." He looked at me in that way he's daring you to be truthful and you just have to tell him the truth of the situation. "Okay, this guy, Parker, he got me..." Riley nodded, stepping into time with me as we walked through the bushes together, used to doing it from his nights spent working for the initiative. Something else I wasn't supposed to know.  
  
Apparantly it had happened to Buffy as well, the Parker thing. I smiled, asking how Buffy was, me being kind of upset recently that he'd been spending every waking and every sleeping moment with her.  
  
"Not so good, she's very with the distance thing." I nodded, saying that was understandable, considering what she was. "You remember that she's not supposed to know you know?" I nodded and complained that it was unfair that I didn't get to join in Scooby Gang shaped things, and it was meaning I got to spend, like, no time with my best friend. The one I'd gone to UC Sunnydale for. "You have other friends? Right?" I told him I was sharing a room with a girl called Laura, and her best friend wasn't a student, but we hung out together a lot. "Good..." I stopped, and he realised that we'd stopped in front of his frat house.  
  
Walking and talking sure took up a long time.  
  
"Skye, come up." I held back for a minute, not knowing whether I should, but I gave him a hug and, as I leant in to give him one, he caught my lips in a kiss. It felt so nice with Riley like that, even though I knew he was hopelessly infatuated with Buffy, that I didn't reject his offer of heading up together. We walked upstairs together, and I asked for a t-shirt to sleep in. We'd had so many sleepovers when we were little, and I can remember cuddling up to Riley during thunderstorms – with him pretending not to be afraid. He got one out of his drawers, and held it out.  
  
I walked closer, and he hugged me, muttering closely that I didn't have to wear it. I nodded, looking up and kissing him again, knowing it was wrong, and also knowing that it felt so right at once all contributing to how good it felt. It was weird, this with my best friend, but in the same way it felt nice. We'd spent so long together, talking and hanging out, having fun, that this was just it all coming together in something our parents had always expected, but had never really happened.  
  
He reached behind me and switched the light out, as I tugged my jacket off, and he tugged his shirt off.  
  
Later on, I can just remember him kissing my shoulder tenderly and wishing me a good night, before settling with his arm round my bare hips. But all I could hear when I woke up was shouting, which is presumably what woke me up. I was lying on my front, with the covers only covering me up to my waist, so I picked up the sheet and wrapped it round me, running a hand through my hair as I secured the sheet, stepping out onto the hall to see what was going on. I stood on the landing, and looked down to the first floor, where I could see Riley stood in front of a girl I barely knew, him only in a pair of trousers, with his hair all over the place. The girl was really pretty, blonde and I presumed her to be Buffy when I heard her speak. I sank to the floor and sat, staring through the railings at the two of them arguing.  
  
"Buffy, it didn't mean anything, she's just... I've known her a long time and we were kind of distant, and she was just there..." I could hear his pathetic excuses and I felt tears sting my eyes as she screamed back whether apart was distance enough for him.  
  
I stood up to go back into Riley's room to get dressed, and tripped on the sheet, falling with a thud onto the wooden floor, and part way down the stairs. Buffy looked up and came running over, grabbing my hair and asking whether I'd forced him into it. I felt the tears dropping slowly onto my cheeks and I begged her to let go as Riley walked over, stopping at the bottom of the stairs before saying anything.  
  
"She's not one of your demons Buffy, you cant hurt her for hurting you, you'd be turning into Faith."  
  
This seemed to hit a sore spot and as she let go, I ran up the stairs and locked myself into Riley's room, getting dressed and pulling on my boots, walking over to the window, and opening it, looking at how far it was down.  
  
I decided I could handle it and got up onto the sill as I closed my eyes, preparing to jump. I did, and my knees buckled for a moment before I recovered myself, running to my dorm room, where I locked myself in. Laura asked what was going on, as Rachael helped herself to the cookies on the desk. I explained what had happened with Riley, and they nodded, saying Buffy would probably be after my blood now.  
  
"But I didn't mean to!" I wailed, and they asked what had happened, seriously this time. "I slept with Riley, and it felt so right, and very, very wrong at the same time, so it felt even better, and... he's my best friend I cant believe this is happening!" I was shaking with tears by this point and Laura put her arm round me, trying to calm me as she told me to calm down and tell her what happened properly. I got to the part where Buffy had been yelling at Riley and he'd told her it meant nothing to him.  
  
"That's probably a lie Skye, he was probably just saying it to fix things with Buffy." I nodded, knowing that this made sense now, but I still couldn't get his face as he said it out of my head. "You know what I think we should have?" I shook my head and Laura held up her hand, swinging her hips and shaking her hair around for a second before pausing, "dudey dance party at the Bronze?" I nodded, saying I was totally up for it that night, but I needed to get to class right now.  
  
My first class of the day (I had two today) was Psych, and I wasn't looking forwards to the class I shared with both Riley and Buffy. I was a year younger, nearly anyway, than Buffy, as her birthday was at the beginning of the year, and mine was at the end of August, so she probably looked down on me anyway. She was in my Psych class, when she decided to show up, and she too knew what the initiative was.  
  
Laura and Rachael had gone to High School with the Scoobies and therefore knew them pretty well. Personally, I would like to have been initiated into Riley's group of other friends, but Laura and Rachael had never got round to it, and I knew Riley wouldn't want me meeting Buffy properly now.  
  
I wasn't even sure I wanted to see Riley now. I arrived at class, and saw Riley stood at the front of class with Walsh, as I put my head down, and headed up the stairs, only glancing up to see what chairs were free. There was one in front of Buffy and Willow, and I closed my eyes in pain as I thought of what Buffy would probably do to me if she got the chance, what she would have done if Riley hadnt been there.  
  
I slid into my seat and got out my textbook and notebook, gripping my pen in between fingers white with the effort I was putting into it. I could feel my eyes sting with tears as I saw Riley smiling and talking to Walsh as the rest of the class filed in.  
  
Eventually everybody was sat down and she started giving the outlines for a new assignment. I wrote down every word she said, and engrossed myself in my work that lesson. I was one of the last people to leave the class and I saw Buffy talk to Riley for a minute before she left, giving him a peck on the cheek.  
  
I walked slowly down the steps, my vision blurred by tears that had not yet had the chance to fall, and I tripped on the last step, dropping my books and swearing as I scrambled about to pick them up.  
  
"Skye?" Walsh asked whether I was alright, and that I had seemed a bit uptight this lesson.  
  
I just stammered that I had to go over my french and ran out, in the direction of my dorm room, so I could get inside before anyone could have the chance to see me crying.  
  
I felt a strong hand close over my arm, however, when I got to the entrance to my halls of residence. I told Riley to let go before I turned round, not wanting him to see how upset he made me.  
  
"Skye, I didn't mean..." I nodded and told him to go and find Buffy, he obviously cared more for her feelings than mine, as he had so clearly pointed out earlier. "You're my best friend,"  
  
I shook my head before replying.  
  
"Were, Riley, were. According to you I'm just someone you've known since you were four who was convieniently there when you were going through a rough patch. That's not what best friends are."  
  
I said, shaking myself out of his grip and walking away. I didn't look back to show him the tears in my eyes.  
  
.fin. 


End file.
